


In the Heat of the Moment

by onward_came_the_meteors



Series: Brucemas 2020 [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of minds getting messed with, Angst, Clint Barton's Farm, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, POV Third Person, Set During Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), like really this is a whole bucket of angst, showering together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28090410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onward_came_the_meteors/pseuds/onward_came_the_meteors
Summary: If Natasha had joined Bruce in the shower during Age of Ultron.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov
Series: Brucemas 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2056074
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31
Collections: Brucemas 2020





	In the Heat of the Moment

**Author's Note:**

> I think we all know by now that AOU was everybody's emo phase
> 
> Day 2, for the Natasha/Bruce pairing and the prompt "did I hurt anyone?"

It wasn’t hard to find him, not in this house that might’ve been large on the outside, but was deceptively cozy beneath its wraparound porch and shingled roof. Besides, she’d been here almost as much as she’d been anywhere.

Natasha crept up the stairs, listening to the sputtery hiss of the shower turning on a floor above. Her hypothesis had been correct—but then again, she’d already passed a disgruntled-looking Tony traipsing out to the barn, a probably-lost Steve wandering around outside and squinting at the surrounding field with all the uncertainty of the city kid he was, a brief flash of rainbow out the window that told her Thor was already long gone, and a grinning Clint being dragged into the living room to look at Cooper and Lila’s latest Lego creation, so there really weren’t many other places Bruce could be. 

No, it wasn’t hard to find him, but it was to sneak up on him. His instincts, like hers, were wired toward fight-or-flight and checking escape routes and never leaving his back turned, even after all this time where they were supposed to have been safe. Safe under S.H.I.E.L.D. and Stark Industries money and the name “Avengers,” like the shield would somehow cover all of them without cracking under the blow. A lie. It always had been a little bit, well-intentioned but still dangerously tempting in its well intentions, and she supposed that today only proved that.

_ Maybe don’t think about today. _

Or yesterday—was it, already? Everything had blurred by so fast from the time they’d stepped onto that ship at the salvage yard, and the time zones didn’t help. Either way, it was in the past, and there wasn’t anything they could do about it—but  _ wasn’t there _ —and everything had already been laid out. Laid bare.

And maybe they had all been expecting it sooner or later—or maybe they hadn’t, maybe she was alone in her unfortunate rejection of naivetè. Sometimes she did think that, yes, but one look at the others today was enough to banish that teasing hope from her mind. Maybe they hadn’t all been as scarred as she was, as shoved down and ripped apart and left gaping raw, but they all had their own dark sides, even if none of them were quite the same. It was never the same—there probably wasn’t anyone on Earth that  _ had _ felt it the same, and as grateful as she was for that, the pang of its absence ghosted every step she took.

But that was selfish and childish, and she was better than that, more heroic than that, wasn’t she—

The sunlight streaming through the windows as she crossed the hall was pale and washed out. It had been hidden from view the previous night as they’d drifted through the dark clouds, no one talking and nothing to fill the yawning silence besides Maria Hill’s words replaying themselves to a rhythm of screaming and explosions and the crack of a bullet and the softly eerie tones of ballet. 

_ Stay in stealth mode, and stay away from here. _

Natasha was suddenly achingly glad that the farmhouse had awful Internet service. Usually this was a source of annoyance, a curse after missions as she and Clint would desperately try to get in touch, to bring up their end of the loop, to land on their feet even as they twisted beneath them. They never  _ tried _ to end up here, they would never do that, but years and years of injuries that were worse than they’d thought and contacts that fell apart and deadlines that had been missed because they’d been caught off guard and thrust off the grid with their hands tied behind their backs had led to so many instances—too many to count, and she preferred it that way—where all other options had run thin and Clint had turned to her with that resigned look, that look that was sometimes distorted by the slow trail of blood oozing from his forehead or a black eye blushing purple against pale skin, and there was no point in arguing when she was reminded just how few they could trust—really trust, with shadowy organizations and ulterior motives and pretending upon pretending upon maybe the barest grain of truth—as they shrunk down to two.

Was it six, now? She wasn’t sure. 

And she always felt it, that immense wave of guilt as she brought the battle and the blood to the door of this idyllic place of peace, this house that shouldn’t have  _ needed  _ to clarify that it was safe. Not in that sense of the word. 

It was a blessing, now, but who knew how long it would last.

Natasha reached the door and tapped her fingertips over the rough wooden surface, not bothering to muffle her footsteps. She didn’t have the heart, right now, to play their old game of catching one another by surprise, coming within inches of upsetting beakers and files and knocking into teammates, all the while pretending it wasn’t an elaborate charade as she tested and pushed and hit against limits only to cling to them, and he maintained his tight clenching grasp until finally, finally, she could relax, and maybe he could too, just a bit. 

The door creaked open easily—it never really locked all the way; that had been deliberate as soon as Cooper and Lila got old enough to reach doorknobs—and Natasha stepped inside, her gaze flicking quickly over the outline of the sprinkling water behind the shower curtain and the hint of steam creeping over the mirror before landing on the bathroom’s only occupant.

Bruce didn’t look surprised to see her. He didn’t look like he had room to feel anything else, actually—like all the emotions he had had been ripped out and blown up and scraped out of him, flung to the winds and stabbed to his sleeve, and he was left hanging in wait for the next. The look on his face would have been called grim if it weren’t for the eerie blankness in his eyes as he turned to look at her.

It almost made her shiver, but Natasha had seen a reflection before.

“Hey,” she finally said, because what else was there to say? None of their usual platitudes would have done any good, not now, when they  _ had _ messed up and they  _ had _ lost control and there  _ had  _ been damage that could hardly even be called collateral when it was deliberate, and they couldn’t even claim that it had been in service of a victory, because there hadn’t been one.

And at the rate things were going, who knew if there would ever be. 

“Hey,” Bruce echoed. He folded the shirt in his hands over the crook of his arm with careful studiousness and set it aside before speaking again. “There’s, uh… there’s not a bathroom downstairs?”

Natasha shrugged with one shoulder. “Didn’t feel like waiting.” Her words made a brave attempt at lightness, but sank to the floor at the waver she couldn’t quite suppress.

Of course he noticed. She could tell, in the catch of his eyes and the little downturn at the edge of his mouth, and he shifted just the slightest bit closer. 

He didn’t ask her if she was okay, and for that, she was grateful, because the beginnings of cracks were already starting to cave in under the weight of all the lies— the ones that she normally locked up and pushed down, but that were now spilling out in a rush that she didn’t want to add to. Instead, he asked, “So… has there been any more news? About Ultron or…” 

He trailed off, and Natasha didn’t blame him—the events of the past few days were an iceberg, one with an infinite bottom lurking beneath the waves, and just scratching the surface meant risking drowning.

She knew what he was trying to do—distract her, make her feel useful, give her a chance to pretend that she was still the Black Widow, capable S.H.I.E.L.D. agent placing information where she pleased—and maybe after any other mission, it would have worked. Would have worked just the same as her reassurances and jokes did for him, her recruitment of other teammates (usually Thor; they all trusted him to be brutally honest but he was also, at his core, a genuinely kind person… alien… person) to give the report of Hulk’s share in their success. Both of them were just a little too smart for it, but they’d allowed themselves that luxury of pretending they weren’t in the past few years, the past few  _ assembles _ . 

Today was different, and both of them knew it in the way Bruce’s head dipped and Natasha’s eyes closed for the briefest moment.

“No,” she said at last. “Clint’s had a thousand projects going on here since I’ve known him, but getting a decent Wi-Fi signal isn’t one of them.” 

Bruce nodded. “I suppose that’s good.” He didn’t add why, but he didn’t need to. The six of them had only been thinking about one thing for the last two days.

Well. Maybe not entirely.

A silence fell, and the only sound was the water in the shower continuing to run as neither of them moved. They might have been alone in the room, but it didn’t feel like it as shadows and echoes and thoughts reached out in tendrils and shoved up for space, and suddenly Natasha felt like she couldn’t breathe.

Her eyes fell upon the neat pile of clothes folded atop the toilet seat, clearly put there by somebody else. Her mind flurried around the most obvious suspect before conceding that Tony wouldn’t know where to find anything and that it had in all likelihood been Clint who’d dug through a closet for a few of his softer-fitting clothes as Bruce hung back and tried to vanish into the woodwork. The image played out clear as day before her mind, the smallest speck of light.

The clothes were flannel, like everything else in this place, but forgive her if her gaze was drawn less to the shirt itself than to the lack of one.

Her thoughts drifted to the way they had all found Bruce right after, after they’d shaken off ( _ ha _ ) the effects of the Maximoff girl’s mind tricks and made a beeline for the city. Natasha had been floating in and out of her body, but Clint hadn’t let her fall all the way back to the jet, even as Thor’s hands crackled with burning sparks and Steve whispered heartbreakingly to the air for the time it took for the short flight. The last thing Clint had heard over the coms was that they needed a lullaby, and there was no need to guess what that meant. 

Sure enough, once they’d reached the city—or what remained of it—they’d found Tony trying to extricate himself from a suit that was more cracks than metal, right next to Bruce, who’d been lying half-buried in a pile of rubble. A familiar sight—or it should have been, were it not for the crushed look on Tony’s face and the crater of destruction that had seemed to extend throughout the entire city. 

They’d hoped Bruce would remain unconscious, at least until they got back to the jet, but he’d stirred as Steve lifted him up (with arms that still shook, just the slightest bit, but no one said a word), and none of them could cover his eyes fast enough before they opened. 

The usual “did I hurt anyone?” had whispered from his throat, but was left hanging in the still air as his eyes cleared of fog and took in their surroundings. 

He hadn’t spoken again after that.

Neither had Natasha, not until there had been two tiny faces running at her bright with innocence, and she’d tacked on a smile that felt like it was made of paper.

But now the shower was running, and Bruce hadn’t told her to leave yet, and they were going to waste the hard-come-by hot water if they stood here for too much longer, and so Bruce stepped inside, leaving the curtain open a twitch.

Natasha unzipped her suit—feeling the ache of every muscle and the cascade of little pebbles and the layers of grime and sweat and fear that coated her like a casing—and followed on light steps.

The shower was small, with cracks in the tiles and spiderwebs in the corners. The last time she’d been in here, a centipede had scurried out of the drain, and she shot a careful glance down to her bare feet, but she’d been in worse. Both of them had. 

There was a half-empty purple bottle of kids’ shampoo on the shelf, and she deftly turned it around so that it was hidden behind the bland white bottle of body wash. This was a guest room, but things did tend to pile up, especially when they had the potential to create inconvenient and metaphorical reminders. 

She was very aware of Bruce’s presence beside her, the warmth radiating from his skin and the always-so-measured sound of his breathing that faltered a bit as she leaned her head back into the spray.

For a moment, the water just pounded down around them, and her back was cold where it was exposed to the air. Her hair soaked through quickly, becoming a damp weight of curls against her neck, and she ran a halfhearted hand through it like a comb before giving up. Conditioner existed for a reason.

Streaks of dirt that she hadn’t even realized were there until they washed off were running down Bruce’s face in dark lines, the remnants of wreckage and buildings and cities that no one wanted to mention. There was blood on both of them, but none of it was their own, and in unison they watched the water swirl pink around the drain for two, three, four seconds before it was clear again and shoulders sank down in an exhausted sigh.

Natasha really was cold, but again, the shower was small, and there was no way to get fully under the spray of warm water without being nearly pressed up against Bruce’s chest.

She tilted her head up, and once again he understood without words.

“I don’t think now is the best time.”

And it was that look, that one of self-deprecation and hopelessness and the quiet acceptance that no one else would ever realize until it was long past, that made that familiar feeling rise in the depths of Natasha’s bones.

It wasn’t pity. It was recognition. 

And it was that feeling that inspired her into action, inspired her into the words that spilled out of her mouth with the deliberation of days, of weeks, because there was forbearance and there was safety but there was also  _ chance _ . 

“Then when will be? You can’t say never, not with the potential apocalypse tomorrow and everything.” Her usual dryness felt as sharp as a sword today, as sharp as a knife.

“We’re not exactly alone,” was his reply, and that was when her heart gave a shudder in her chest, because that was what he chose, out of all the tired arguments they’d spoken both aloud and in silence on the remains of a battlefield and a corner on a quinjet and a balcony of one of the tallest buildings in New York City, and it meant that somewhere—somewhere not quite so deep down as he’d like her to think—he wanted this. 

So Natasha stepped closer. “Well, I don’t see any of them around, do you?”

There was a choked sound that could have been a laugh; she would have pinned it as a laugh if she hadn’t known what his sounded like (and oh, hadn’t she been proud of herself the day she’d found out—worth more than all the expensive tech that Stark had bribed her with to come stay at the tower).

“I get the feeling there wouldn’t be enough room.”

“Thought you were supposed to be a genius, we could figure something out.”

“I could tell you the same thing I’ve been telling you—”

“And it hasn’t worked to convince me any of those times, so when are you going to get it through your head that it doesn’t matter to—”

“How can you say it doesn’t matter?”

And oh no, now they’d gotten there. It had only been a matter of time, but now the lightness and the balancing on the edge had tipped completely sideways and sunken down into the shadows. Shadows like the ones that ringed both their eyes, and his were wide now, but without a hint of panic, just… resignation. 

She wanted to shake him, but she felt that if her hands were to touch him right now, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from—

And then Bruce was still talking, his words distorting themselves over the pounding of the water around them. “If today hasn’t given you enough of a hint, then I don’t know what… I—I can’t—”

And whatever his argument was going to be drained out of him as his hands gestured uselessly in the air, coming up to scrub at the wet strands of hair clinging to his forehead. He was tired. A simple word, but perfectly descriptive.

“I know.”

Their eyes met, and it was the silent acknowledgement, the silent  _ I see you and you see me and we are the same _ that did it, and the distance between them vanished as it was only one more step and then she was sliding against him, their skin slipping together as hands wrapped around and held as tightly as they could. A small puff of breath traced a spiral up his neck and around his ear, and hands were fluttering around her sides like the clasp of a necklace, still unreciprocated, unanswered, hanging in the air and dancing around as their breaths intermingled with the soft pattering of the water around them.

And then it didn’t matter anymore, because they had both disappeared in the mist, anonymous people grasping at hints that had been afraid to bloom, and everything was moving now: smooth and quick and deft because this was her and she had been  _ waiting _ , and oh god that became ever more apparent as she realized that he had been waiting too. He kept her like a promise, tight and close and  _ near,  _ and even as their hands spun like delicate glass, they were still alive with the pulse of movement threading through both of their heartbeats, the adrenaline that had abandoned them in battle flushing forth with life and with heat and with eyes filling up with each other and set aflame.

Sweat slid down thighs only to immediately pour off by the water splashing down from the showerhead, wiping them both clean again. Her hand spidered up his back before settling there, the meaning trying to sink in before washing away, always being washed away by the dripping and the dripping and the dripping, and there was a feeling working its way up and up and up until her head broke the surface and she gasped out.

The sound echoed on the tiles and both of them froze, because there were seven-and-counting other people in this house, and it didn’t matter how many repairs Clint made when the walls were still clapboard-thin.

The water was getting cold anyway.

They finished up, and soon enough both of them were clambering back out and pulling sticking fabric over their wet bodies. Natasha realized belatedly that the only clothing she’d brought was her suit—which was currently a stained and filthy mess—and borrowed a bathrobe that had been hanging on a hook. It was nice, soft and fluffy without being smothering, and she faced the wall while she slipped it on.

She could feel the accusation radiating from Bruce, and that was why she purposely didn’t turn her head until he spoke. 

“You were looking for a distraction.”

She did turn, then. Bruce was standing there exactly as she’d expected, somehow managing to look exposed even under layers of borrowed flannel and denim. He always looked that way—a little lost, a little broken open, the antithesis of everything her spy’s training had been, and yet it had drawn her to him. 

And something,  _ something _ , and none of the usual things either because that wasn’t  _ Bruce _ , had drawn him to her. 

“If I wanted a distraction, I wouldn’t have come to you.” An easy thing to say, a practiced thing that had all the weight of a shard of glass.

“But you always do.” Bruce spoke quietly, but his words seemed to fill up the whole of the small room. “Whether you want the thrill of the most obvious dangerous thing or someone with the same… well, inner demons is putting it a little too literally, but…” He shrugged. “Same package; I guess it makes it easier.”

Natasha let out a slow breath before she straightened up, heart pounding. “First of all, you sound awful pretentious with that crap.” Bruce at least had the decency to look down at the floor. “You’ve never been dangerous to me, all right? You’re not… you color-code your lab schedules. You’re the one who makes breakfast after we all assemble because Steve’s bleeding out from bullet wounds and Tony’s trying to play off a concussion. You’re one of the good ones.”

Bruce shifted. “Technically, I am classified as a threat level red in the—”

“Oh, shut up. That’s exactly what I mean.” Natasha felt her burst of energy start to ebb away, and the heaviness begin to settle again—settle in the important parts: the muscles, the bones, the lungs. The heart. “Do you really think so little of both of us? Is it so hard to accept that it’s  _ all right _ for us, because we’ve already—” she swallowed “—because I’ve—I’m—”

And Bruce was stepping towards her again, softer now, with a hand that deliberated for a good thirty seconds before brushing lightly against her arm, and her skin practically cried out for the touch that she refused to lean into because her chest was suddenly tight and her eyes were prickling and she couldn’t be breaking down, could she, that wasn’t what she  _ did _ —

Bruce’s voice was infinitely quiet. “What did she show you?”

And somehow Natasha found the ability to answer. Somehow grasped for the loose strings in her center and pulled them tight again, somehow tilted her face to hide the shadows, and it wasn’t really a  _ somehow _ but it was easier to pretend it was. “My past. No pretty colors, no music, nothing to dress it up. There’s no need to stylize what was already… “ No, she wasn’t going to say it. “Anyway.”

She looked at him. “I don’t think you know. You think you do, everyone thinks they do, but is it really enough? Nobody  _ knows _ , and so it’s easy for them to brush off—” It always had been, from the archer in the rain-drenched alley to the building full of people in business suits that merged strangely well with the tactical gear to the rows and rows of news stations proclaiming the “heroes” that had saved New York “—because they’ve never seen.”

And she’d tried, she’d tried to show them, show everyone the harshness of the dream they’d let themselves into, of the web she’d unwittingly spun around them, but when helicarriers were tumbling from the sky and double agents were revealing themselves left and right and assassins with metal arms were marching down the D.C. streets, it was surprising how much got swept under the rug.

“I put it all out there,” she continued. “Right out for everyone to see, and still no one seems to understand. I think maybe because it’s so… I don’t know, unimaginable?” They lived in a world of gods and monsters and men who were all but immortal— “It just gets brushed off and left at that, but it’s not, it’s more.”  _ It’s so much more.  _ “I never had a choice. For so long. And then I did, and I just kept making the wrong ones. I was perfect.”

And maybe that statement should have come off as incongruous, but it wasn’t—because he could understand, because even though they were, respectively, the products of it all going right and it all going wrong, they had somehow somersaulted their way into the same place.

So she finished, her voice betraying her by cracking ever-so-slightly. “Exactly as they made me to be.”

_ Which of us, do you think, has more blood on their hands? _

She met Bruce’s eyes again, the unspoken dare evident in her eyes.  _ Go on, then. Judge me as hard as you judge yourself.  _

But Bruce was shaking his head. “But you were better than that. They might’ve made you one thing, but you made yourself another, and that’s—” He ducked his head a little. “That’s more heroic than I think the rest of us could be.”

Natasha made a noise in the back of her throat.

“Really. You made it over.”

“Is it?” And she didn’t mean it to come out a whisper, but somehow it did anyway.

She wouldn’t have expected anything else, but somehow she loved Bruce a little more when he whispered back, with all the conviction he could muster in his still-slightly-hoarse-from-the-transformation voice, “ _ Yes.” _

And their faint touches that had been darting around each other deepened again, only this time it was different; this time it was for his arms to wrap around her and her to pull him in close in a hug that was somehow the safest she’d ever felt. 

They stayed like that for a long time before breaking apart and going back downstairs, down to Lego castles and a pile of freshly chopped wood and dinner already warming up in a kitchen filled with voices and laughter and people pretending it wasn’t the end of the world, if only for a few hours.

And if any of the others noticed (they had to notice) that both Natasha and Bruce had wet hair despite the shower only running for one length, none of them said a word.

It was a pocket of time, and they had to make the most of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
